Nanowire thermometers

We report the design and demonstration of nanowire temperature reporters. Metal alloys with tunable melting points were used to create nanowires in nanopores of anodic aluminum oxide using mechanical pressure injection. When exposed to temperature above their melting points, nanowires began to break up into disconnected shorter nanorods due to Rayleigh instability. A wide range of temperature can be probed conveniently by measuring electrical resistance of nanowires.